FIONA MacRAE
Women who keep to a low-fat diet when trying to conceive could be dramatically cutting their chances of pregnancy, according to a study.
Drinking a pint of semi-skimmed or skimmed milk or eating two pots of yoghurt a day almost doubles the risk of an increasingly common condition in which women stop ovulating.
Eating full-fat dairy products has the opposite effect. A bowl of ice cream a day was found to be enough to boost the chance of having a child.
The study carried out at the highlyrespected Harvard School of Public Health in Massachusetts involved nearly 19,000 women.
Jorge Chavarro, the report's author, advised would-be mothers to eat up to two servings of full-fat dairy foods a day. One serving equates to half a pint of milk, an ounce of cheese or half a cup of ice cream.
Yoghurt, cottage cheese and skimmed or semi- skimmed milk are classed as low fat, while whole milk, cream, ice cream, cream cheese and other cheeses count as full fat.
Dr Chavarro warned women however not to increase their overall calorie intake, or their intake of dangerous saturated fat.
"Once they have become pregnant, then they should probably switch back to low-fat dairy foods, as it is easier to limit intake of saturated fat by consuming low-fat dairy foods," he added.
The study tracked the health and diet of 18,555 women for eight years.
During that period, 438 of the women, who were aged between 24 and 42, were diagnosed with anovulatory infertility.
The condition, in which ovulation stops, accounts for a third of female fertility problems.
Scrutiny of the women's diets revealed a clear link between dairy food and anovulatory infertility, with low-fat products appearing to exacerbate it.
Those women who ate two or more servings of low-fat dairy foods a day were 85 per cent more likely to suffer from it.
Women who ate at least one serving of full-fat milk dairy food a day were 27 per cent less likely to have the condition. Adding half a pint of whole milk to the diet cuts the risk of ovulation problems by 22 per cent.
Women who ate ice cream at least twice a week were almost 40 per cent less likely to suffer from anovulatory fertility than those who rarely ate it.
Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the researchers said they could not explain the results.
It is possible that dairy fat or the sex hormones in cow's milk boost fertility by affecting the balance of hormones involved in ovulation.
Both the fat and the sex hormones are at their highest in whole-fat products.
It is also possible that removing fat from dairy products raises the levels of a hormone thought to be behind many cases of anovulatory infertility.
Professor Adam Balen, of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: "It is an interesting finding but more research needs to be done. The main concern is obesity and the advice about not increasing calorie intake is key."
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Women who keep to a low-fat diet when trying to conceive could be dramatically cutting their chances of pregnancy, according to a study.
Drinking a pint of semi-skimmed or skimmed milk or eating two pots of yoghurt a day almost doubles the risk of an increasingly common condition in which women stop ovulating.
Eating full-fat dairy products has the opposite effect. A bowl of ice cream a day was found to be enough to boost the chance of having a child.
The study carried out at the highlyrespected Harvard School of Public Health in Massachusetts involved nearly 19,000 women.
Jorge Chavarro, the report's author, advised would-be mothers to eat up to two servings of full-fat dairy foods a day. One serving equates to half a pint of milk, an ounce of cheese or half a cup of ice cream.
Yoghurt, cottage cheese and skimmed or semi- skimmed milk are classed as low fat, while whole milk, cream, ice cream, cream cheese and other cheeses count as full fat.
Dr Chavarro warned women however not to increase their overall calorie intake, or their intake of dangerous saturated fat.
"Once they have become pregnant, then they should probably switch back to low-fat dairy foods, as it is easier to limit intake of saturated fat by consuming low-fat dairy foods," he added.
The study tracked the health and diet of 18,555 women for eight years.
During that period, 438 of the women, who were aged between 24 and 42, were diagnosed with anovulatory infertility.
The condition, in which ovulation stops, accounts for a third of female fertility problems.
Scrutiny of the women's diets revealed a clear link between dairy food and anovulatory infertility, with low-fat products appearing to exacerbate it.
Those women who ate two or more servings of low-fat dairy foods a day were 85 per cent more likely to suffer from it.
Women who ate at least one serving of full-fat milk dairy food a day were 27 per cent less likely to have the condition. Adding half a pint of whole milk to the diet cuts the risk of ovulation problems by 22 per cent.
Women who ate ice cream at least twice a week were almost 40 per cent less likely to suffer from anovulatory fertility than those who rarely ate it.
Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the researchers said they could not explain the results.
It is possible that dairy fat or the sex hormones in cow's milk boost fertility by affecting the balance of hormones involved in ovulation.
Both the fat and the sex hormones are at their highest in whole-fat products.
It is also possible that removing fat from dairy products raises the levels of a hormone thought to be behind many cases of anovulatory infertility.
Professor Adam Balen, of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: "It is an interesting finding but more research needs to be done. The main concern is obesity and the advice about not increasing calorie intake is key."
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